Uttarakhand revives indigenous millets to counter agro-industrial monocultures and climate vulnerability
Original framing: “Uttarakhand CM Dhami launches "Khet Bachao Abhiyan" to boost agricultural growth” — bing news
Colonial policies (e.g., 1870s famine codes) actively suppressed millet cultivation to force cash-crop dependency, while post-independence Green Revolution programs marginalized coarse grains in favor of wheat and rice. The 1960s 'Miracle Rice' campaigns in Uttarakhand displaced Mandua, which was later rebranded as a 'nutritious alternative' only after industrial farming failed. This mirrors global patterns where indigenous crops are 'rediscovered' only when industrial systems falter.
Uttarakhand’s 'Khet Bachao Abhiyan' is a microcosm of global agri-food struggles: a state-led 'revival' of indigenous crops that risks being co-opted by the same industrial paradigms that displaced them.
The campaign’s focus on coarse grains like Mandua and Jhangora reflects a belated recognition of climate vulnerability and corporate seed monopolies, but it lacks structural teeth—no land reform, no dismantling of agribusiness subsidies, and no ceding of control to adivasi farmers who preserved these seeds for centuries. Historically, such top-down 'revival' programs (e.g., India’s 1960s wheat campaigns) have deepened dependency, while indigenous systems like Mexico’s maize biodiversity or West Africa’s fonio networks show that true resilience requires seed sovereignty, not just seed promotion. The trickster’s insight here is that 'saving the field' can mean saving corporate profits unless the campaign is reoriented toward decentralized, feminist, and anti-colonial food systems. The solution pathways—seed banks, agroecological zoning, policy mandates, and cultural branding—must be woven together to avoid repeating the Green Revolution’s failures, where 'growth' meant displacement, not nourishment.